Die SVV heisst seit 2014: Swissveg

Vegetarian Lioness: Little Tyke

Little Tyke turning away her head from meat (and wincing).

At four years old, the mature African lioness weighed 352 pounds. Her
body stretched 10 feet 4 inches long and could run 40 miles per hour.
Her skull, highly adapted to killing and eating prey, possessed short
powerful jaws. Normally, African lions eat gnus, zebras, gazelles,
impalas, and giraffes. This particular big cat, in her prime and
perfect health, chose a more gentle way of life, vegetarian!

A Violent Birth

Georges and Margaret Westbeau, standing outside the thick steel
bars of the cage, watched nervously. Inside, a vicious, raging beast
baring razor claws and glistening fangs, roared. Flinging herself at
the couple, who watched from barely three feet away, her suffering
amber eyes defied their presence.
Always, in the past, this lioness destroyed her offspring as soon as
they were born. Four times in the last seven years, her powerful jaws
had crushed her newborn cubs, furiously throwing them against her
cage's bars where they tumbled, lifeless.
Denying the normal instincts of motherhood, what possessed this
lioness? Her life mocked its former freedom. She lived a caged
animal, taken from the wild and tortured by those who captured her.
Did she feel that by destroying her cubs they would be spared the
humiliation that she endured?
Suddenly, the newborn cub came flying towards the people anxiously
watching. Georges quickly grabbed the cub through the bars before it
could be killed. Its right front leg dangled helplessly from its
mother's brutal jaws. In the face of such fury the only thing the
human could say was, 'You poor little tike'.
The Westbeaus took the three-pound 'Little Tyke' to their Hidden
Valley Ranch near Seattle and there it joined the menagerie of other
animals including horses, cattle, and chickens. Curious peacocks
lined the housetop, kittens peered through a picket fence, and two
terriers danced with joy for the new addition to the household.
Drinking bottles of warm milk, Little Tyke began the long road to
recovery.

Mysterious reaction

With the advice of experts the Westbeaus began weaning Little Tyke
onto solid food at three months. Leaving only a favorite doll, they
removed most of her rubber toys, replacing them with bones from
freshly slaughtered beef. They carried the small cub to the bones.
Unexpectedly, she violently threw up!
Experts told them in no uncertain terms that lions couldn't live
without meat. In the wild, lions ate only flesh - eleven pounds a day
for an adult female. Alarmed at Little Tyke's strange behavior, they
wondered at how they could introduce meat into her diet? In the
meantime, they continued feeding Little Tyke baby cereal mixed with
milk.
A well meaning friend suggested mixing beef blood with milk, in
increasing proportions. Given milk containing ten drops of blood,
Little Tyke would have nothing to do with it. They mixed in five
drops of blood, and hid that bottle. As she sucked on the plain milk
they quickly switched bottles. Again she refused it. In desperation
they added one drop of blood to a full bottle of
milk, but Little Tyke refused this bottle as well, and they could
only stare in amazement.
Another friend suggested putting plain milk in one hand, and milk
mixed with hamburger in the palm of the other hand. Little Tyke
readily licked the milk from one hand, but when Georges changed
hands, she immediately turned away. Sensing her distress, Georges
wiped his hands on a nearby towel and picked her up. Hissing in fear
and cringing away, she looked sick from the danger-smell of meat on
his hand. She only settled down when given a fresh bottle of milk
held in washed hands.

Thousand-dollar reward

At nine months old and weighing sixty-five pounds, Little Tyke had
the splints and bandages on her leg taken off for the last time. She
slowly learned to depend on the healed leg, and mingled with other
animals on the ranch.
Since the ranch didn't earn enough income to make ends meet, the
Westbeaus ran a small cold storage plant in town. Little Tyke came
with them when they went to work and word got around about this
vegetarian lioness. When she was four years old, the Westbeaus
advertised a thousand dollar reward for anyone who could devise a
method tricking Little Tyke into eating meat. Numerous plans met with
failure since Little Tyke refused to have anything to do with
flesh.

The answer

The caretakers of this gentle animal sought out animal experts,
always asking them about diet. Finally, one young visitor set their
mind at ease. With serious eyes he turned to them and asked, 'Don't
you read your Bible? Read Genisis 1:30, and you will get your
answer.' At his first opportunity Georges read in astonishment, 'And
to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to
everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I
have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.' At that point,
after four years, the Westbeaus finally stopped worrying.

Little Tyke's meals

A typical meal consisted of various grains, chosen for their
protein, calcium, fats, and roughage. Margaret always cooked a few
days' supply ahead of time. At feeding time, a double handful of the
cooked grains along with one-half gallon of milk with two eggs,
supplied Little Tyke a delicious meal. She had one condition before
eating. Her favorite rubber doll had to be right next to her!

Little Tyke with Becky

For teeth and gums, the Westbeaus supplied rubber boots, since she
refused bones. They attracted her to the boots by sprinkling them
with perfume. One boot lasted almost a month.
Little Tyke had many close animal friends. Her favorites were Pinky
(a kitten), Imp (another kitten), Becky (a lamb) and Baby (a fawn).
Her favorite and closest friend, however, was Becky, who preferred
Little Tyke's company to any of the other animals.

National publicity

You Asked For It, the popular television show hosted by Art Baker,
once featured Little Tyke. The producers wanted a scene with
chickens, which didn't bother Georges since Little Tyke roamed easily
among chickens at Hidden Valley Ranch. When the film crew brought the
chickens in, they turned out to be four little day-old chicks!

Slurp of the tongue

Little Tyke's only previous experience with new chicks had been
with a hen and her chicks who had wandered onto the lawns around
their home on the ranch. Georges thought nothing of it until he saw
Little Tyke acting peculiarly, slinking into the house, and looking
guilty with lips tightly closed over obviously open jaws. He called
'Tyke! What have you got?' Instantly her mouth opened and a little
chick popped out, unharmed. Flapping it's little down-covered wings,
it almost flew back to its upset mother. Apparently Little Tyke had
affectionately licked the tiny chick, as she was prone to do when,
with one huge slurp of the tongue, the little chick had popped into
her mouth, and she hadn't known how to fondle it further!
With the amazed camera crew filming, Little Tyke strode over to the
chicks, hesitated long enough to lick the chicks carefully and
gently with the very tip of her tongue, and moved away
with a yawn. A moment later she came back to lie down among the
chicks. They immediately made their way into the long silky hair at
the base of her great neck where they peered out from the shelter of
their great protector.
Another scene saw a new kitten, after an introduction, walk over to
Little Tyke's huge foreleg and sit down. Little Tyke crooked one paw
around the tiny creature and cuddled it closer.
In front of cameras, Art Baker picked up the Bible and read: 'The
wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw
like the bullock.'
Mail poured into the producers, making this episode one of the most
popular in the show's history.

Little Tyke's death

Unfortunately, while spending three weeks in Hollywood for the
show, Little Tyke contracted virus pneumonia, a disease that took her
life a few weeks later. The sudden change in climate may have been a
contributing factor. She succumbed quietly in her sleep, retiring
early after watching television.

Inspiring to this day

Her life is over, but her teachings live on. Of the many lessons
she taught, not the least is that love removes fear and savagery.
Little Tyke reflected the love and care shown to her after the first
few moments of her precarious birth.
Thousands saw photographs of her lying with her lamb friend, Becky,
inspiring many to see the world a fresh way: two such diverse natures
enjoying each other's love! One eminent attorney kept a huge
enlargement of this photograph in his office, and pointed to it as he
counciled couples on the verge of divorce.

Scientific dilemma

Science is at a loss when it comes to Little Tyke. Felines are the
strictest of carnivores. Without flesh she should have developed
blindness, as well as dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), a degenerative
disease that turns heart muscles flabby and limits their ability to
pump blood. This is because her diet didn't contain an adequate
source of the amino acid, taurine.
Little known in the 1950's, subsequent research at UC Davis in 1976
proved that taurine is an essential nutrient for felines, the lack of
which would cause degeneration of the retina. later research
implicated inadequate taurine levels in dilated cardiomyopathy as
well. For cats with DCM, if the disease has not progressed too far,
administering taurine causes an almost miraculous recovery. Formerly,
cats lived only a few days to weeks after diagnose.
Taurine is non-existent in natural non-animal sources. It is present
in minute amounts in milk and eggs. Little Tyke could have
gotten her taurine requirement from milk, if she drank 500 gallons
per day, or from eggs, if she ate more than 4000 per day. How
did Little Tyke get taurine?

Challenge

Perhaps even more important, why did Little Tyke disown her
species' instincts? Little Tyke is a curiosity to the public,
aberation to zoologists, anomaly to scientists, and an inspiration to
idealists.

Little Tyke wasn't alone. A photograph taken at Allahabad, India
in 1936 shows another awesome lioness.
In Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda wrote:
...Our group left the peaceful hermitage to greet a near-by swami,
Krishnananda, a handsome monk with rosy cheeks and impressive
shoulders. Reclining near him was a tame lioness. Succumbing to the
monk's spiritual charm - not, I am sure, to his powerful physique! -
the jungle animal refuses all meat in favor of rice and milk. The
swami has taught the tawny-haired beast to utter "Aum" in a deep,
attractive growl - a cat devotee!
These vegetarian lionesses are lion lights. By example,
these luminaries invite us as well to discover a less violent world,
turning away from slaughterhouses that fed our dogs and cats prior to
this age of enlightenment.

The article is from the book "Vegetarian Cats & Dogs" by James A. Peden.
There's also a book about Little Tyke, titled "Little Tyke" by
Georges Westbeau available from the Theosophical Society in England,
Phone (800) 669 9425.